Gear of the Year Part 4: Dale's pick - Samsung NX1

Before anything else, let’s address the elephant in the room: for my Gear of the Year I’ve just selected a camera whose future appears a bit dark. As in 'Luke, I am your father' kind of dark. The Samsung NX1 was the camera that some photographers saw as A New Hope for the future, but there’s a disturbance in The Force with signs that the Dark Side might prevail when it comes to Samsung’s camera business.

Some might find my lack of faith disturbing, but I have a bad feeling about this...

It wasn’t an easy choice. On the one hand, how could I choose a product that has more clouds hanging over it than the DPReview offices on a December day in Seattle? On the other, there’s a bunch of engineers somewhere who built a serious kick-ass camera that continues to impress us with its features, quality, and performance. So, yeah… I’m going with the Samsung NX1.

What I love:

Best in class image and video quality

Excellent design and handling

My favorite EVF of any still camera

Outstanding AF performance

Continuous improvement through firmware updates

“You must unlearn what you have learned…”

To provide a bit of context, I’m historically an SLR shooter, though I’ve gone through my share of rangefinders, compact cameras, and other random stuff that converts light into images. For the past several years I’ve relied on a system built mostly around one manufacturer’s products that I could trust day-in and day-out to work reliably and predictably when I had to get it right the first time (in my case Canon).

But in recent years I’ve also been using a lot of mirrorless cameras, particularly Panasonic’s GH series, for video work. I love the idea of what mirrorless cameras can do, and in particular I love the flexibility they provide for shooting video. However, mirrorless cameras never provided the level of performance that I needed for some projects.

Cloud City: the Space Needle rises from a foggy Seattle sunset.

Samsung 50-150mm F2.8 S lens, ISO 100, 1/1250 sec. at F5.6

Enter the Samsung NX1. I’ll freely admit that little more than a year ago Samsung was barely on my radar as a camera manufacturer. I knew Samsung made cameras, but like that guy who shows up to every party but never gets noticed, Samsung’s products lurked in the shadows where I conveniently looked past them. Then Barney asked me to review the NX1 as one of my first assignments at DPReview.

I was blown away. The NX1 was the first mirrorless camera that made me forget that I wasn’t shooting a DSLR. And that was using a camera with pre-production firmware.

Don’t misunderstand - I’m not implying that the pre-production NX1 was perfect. The camera had a nasty habit of crashing and re-booting into German, menu items occasionally went walkabout, and a couple of lenses sometimes decided that they would no longer autofocus. But despite its flaws it was fun to use and hinted at great things to come.

Samsung fixed most of those annoyances with a firmware update, and I spent the next month shooting the NX1 almost every day, sleeping with it under my pillow to absorb its goodness, and pushing the video to its limits.

All was good in the world. Several weeks later I was ready to publish my review, but three days before it was scheduled to go live on our site Samsung released another major firmware update. That changed everything.

Samsung 16-50mm F2-2.8 S lens, ISO 4000, 1/125 sec. at F2.8

With the updated firmware the NX1 was practically a new camera. It added numerous video features including additional frame rates, gamma curves, and other custom settings. Autofocus improved significantly for both stills and video, and new customization options gave users an additional level of control over the camera.

My review was toast. A couple months later, after re-testing the entire camera again and writing a new review, we were ready to go to press one more time when… wait for it… Samsung released another firmware update. Fortunately, this update wasn't as dramatic as the previous one, so we made an editorial decision to go ahead and publish anyway lest we repeat the process in perpetuity, but you get the idea.

I share this backstory because it highlights one of my favorite things about the NX1: Samsung seems (seemed?) intent on not just innovating a great product, but on a program of continued improvement. These weren’t just minor firmware updates, but things that significantly impacted the performance and value of the camera.

“Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?”

But as we all know, a camera is not just about electronics and firmware. It’s also about hardware. It needs to be well designed, solidly built, and most importantly it needs to feel right in your hand.

That last item is a bit nebulous and hard to define, but anyone who’s been shooting for more than a few years knows the feeling of picking up a camera that just feels right. I’m convinced that Samsung did the unthinkable and actually involved photographers in the design of this camera, something I can’t say about every model that comes through the DPReview offices. (And you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy, I assure you.)

Not only does the NX1 feel great in your hand, but it’s solid. Maybe not solid in a 'I can use my Nikon F3 to pound nails into a board' type of way (and really, what is anymore?), but it’s certainly tough enough to stand up to typical professional use.

At one point I took the NX1 on a winter shoot where the temperature hovered in the range of 0 to 5 degrees F (-18 to -15 C). Based on previous experience with mirrorless cameras I fully expected to run into trouble at some point. I didn’t. Like the Energizer Bunny the NX1 kept going, and going and going… Everything just worked, including the EVF and touch screen, for several hours in sub-freezing temperatures. I gave in before the camera did.

Some like it Hoth: Even after a couple hours outdoors working at 0˚ F (-18˚ C) temperatures, the NX1 continued to operate normally. In this case, the camera outlasted me.

Samsung 50-150mm F2.8 S lens, ISO 160, 1/500 sec. at F2.8

Speaking of the EVF, it’s one of the standout things I love about this camera. It’s clear, bright, and has essentially zero lag. You won’t mistake it for a true optical viewfinder, but it works so well that 1) I don’t care, and 2) after a short period of time I simply forget about it and just get on with shooting. I know other cameras have EVFs with similar specs for resolution and lag, but somehow Samsung has managed to make the EVF experience on the NX1 exceed the sum of its parts.

“She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid.”

The other thing that almost makes me forget I’m using a mirrorless camera when shooting the NX1 is its performance. I’ve shot cameras with 10 fps shooting speeds before, but even so the NX1’s 15 fps is scary fast. As in ‘you could easily tell if Greedo shot first’ fast. (Did he? Share your opinion in the comments!) And with 28MP of resolution to play with you would have plenty of detail to examine closeups of those blaster shots. Combine that speed with an AF system that, somewhat incredibly, is able to keep pace and it’s a blast to shoot with.

I say almost because high speed shooting isn’t quite perfected yet. The screen briefly freezes on each exposure, making it a tad difficult to shoot continuously while panning with a subject, and the best part of the AF system - ‘Tracking AF’ - can only be invoked from the touch screen, but overall it’s as good as almost every DSLR I’ve used, and better than most.

Samsung’s 28MP sensor doesn’t really provide any additional detail beyond the standard 24MP found on most APS-C cameras, but in terms of quality it’s right up there with the best of them, including the very impressive Nikon D7200. I also love the fact that I can push exposure in post several stops with almost no penalty to image quality, a feature I’ve leveraged to underexpose in order to preserve highlights.

This photo from Channel Islands National Park in California is actually a single frame of 4K video from the NX1. (Samsung 50-150mm F2.8 lens, exposure unrecorded)

I mentioned above that I do a lot of video work, something that has pushed me into using two parallel camera systems in recent years. In principle, the NX1 could replace both systems. Its video is as good as my go-to workhorse, the Panasonic GH4, but in a package that provides the performance of a high-end DSLR.

In fact, in my perfect world where I can use one system for everything, the NX1 comes remarkably close to meeting almost all my needs.

If we can momentarily ignore that whole ‘Will Samsung even be in the camera business in a few months?’ thing, I’m still not completely convinced that I could make a wholesale switch to the NX system as it stands today. Samsung still doesn’t have as many lens options as competing systems - though some of their lenses are outstanding - and the company hasn’t managed to foster a strong third party ecosystem of tools and adapters similar to what we've seen for mirrorless systems from Panasonic and Sony. As much as I like the NX1 these are real limitations.

“Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.”

There is no shortage of rumors about the future of Samsung’s camera business, and believe it or not we here at DPReview don’t know any more than you. But I think I speak for the whole team when I say that we would be disappointed if Samsung didn’t continue to pursue this market, especially since the company has been one of the most innovative in the business of late. Notably, the NX1 won DPReview’s 2015 Innovation Award amid some very credible competition.

Some people have suggested to that Samsung tried its luck in the camera market but never completely committed to it. I'm not convinced that's the case, but my advice to Samsung is to be bold and heed the words of a great philosopher who said 'Do or do not. There is no try,' and stick with it. However, in the event that the NX1’s future is not long for this galaxy, my hope is that it doesn’t go quietly into the starry night, but instead continues to live on in some form or inspires other manufacturers to make products that push the limits of what's possible.

Its only an excellent product when its is accepted into the market. Interchangeable lens camera is all about the system. The best comment was from TCSTV lately. They just got the price wrong thinking that they have all these feature and a few Schneider Optics people will buy into the system.....NO!! You are new comer so you have to bite the bullet and sell at low price to get people into your system, 3C electronic sale 101. How stupid is for Samsung to screw it up. If it was 1.5K with the F2 zoom it would literally kill the APSC market. All these I had said when NX1 first came out and typically was bang up by Samsung fanboys.....now who s laughing!! I find it really odd that DPR will have a headline press for a soon phase out product. This is very misleading for customer.

It's priced in line with all the other competitive options on the market.

Samsung has an extensive array of affordable optics that punch well above their weight, and the high-end lenses that they have justify their price with performance. How many zoom lenses do you know of that start at f2?

Justified by Samsung, not the customer..... so that mean JS. The market has gave them the answer.

HowaboutRAW

The S Lens are Schneider engineered from what I know and who cares if its not.... BTW hope you sold your Sammy gear already or it going down the drain in term of resell value. Not that it was good to start off anyway.

Well I agree Samsung was ambitious here. They created the best aps-c body-lens kit. Is it overpriced? If you consider all the tech and capability - probably not. It is just that people willing to dump over 2k on a body and lens will be looking to a more established manufacturer. Samsung came with an excellent product - they just should have partnered with Nikon and sold it as a Nikon product.

advancements, tech spec, features....etc That's exactly the kind of thinking that Samsung use....in all market, and no that does not work on camera market.What Samsung should ask is "Is there a way to make people take us seriously on the camera business", "Is there a way we can at least beat Fuji, Panasonic, or Olympus". If the answer is no that may be its good for them to quit.

Its hard to know how to feel about the great loss of Samsung cameras. On the one hand it was all very exciting a short while ago, on the other bells and whistles by the bucket load were not enough to capture a market making it worth while for Samsung.

With the benefit of hindsight I guess I am glad I did not jump, I would be feeling some what let down by now. Its a shame Samsung has not stuck around longer and carried on with its camera devision, much like Olympus did despite making successive losses that it off set by profits else where in its business.

This is something a huge company like Samsung might have done and there is a bit of me wondering what their values and commitment is to existing customers.

And Dale to your point about the firmware, all those upgrades came well into 2015 and substantially altered/improved the camera. That's also what is so paradoxical about Samsung and the NX1 -- legitimate evolution via Firmware for real improvements, yet dropping the camera in a few markets. I wonder if something else is going on that we just don't know about!

Please Samsung... give me a new smartphone called Samsung Galaxy M Zoom (Update of K Zoom) with a new Smartphone interchangeable lens mount, would be fine if only 1 inch sensor possible like Nikon 1, but please with RAW capture and flash hotshoe possibilities.

please samsung please...

Nikon 1 combined with samsung galaxy smartphone... one device, you always can have with you altogether with a pancake lens.

It goes to show that Samsung could not break/shake the Japanese-dominated camera market despite of their excellent product. I was amazed to see their fast technological advancement/achievement and that I thought NX1 would be/could be the camera to beat in the near future. But people's perception about Samsung seemed to kill their product. In general, people don't consider Samsung cameras as a serious products as compared to Japanese ones. Japanese camera products are already deeply etched in their mind so when they shop a new cam, they will look for known Japanese brands. As for Samsung,they are the king for household appliances and they are deeply associated with smart phones,HD TVs and tablests,etc, in people's mind.

Like Honda's new Jet, it's their ambitious attempt to break into very competitive private jet market and they are already doing very well. Form motorcycle/auto business to private jet......but people don't seem to have a problem with that.

I don't think its strictly a "Japanese" thing. It takes a long time to establish oneself in the camera business. Canon and Nikon have been at it for over 75 years. Sony is a relative "newcomer", but has been producing digital cameras for 20 years. Samsung must have decided that it didn't want to invest its time, resources, and focus to break into a market which, by most measures, is a declining one.

As a photographer I'm sad. They seem to have made an excellent and product and could have really given the major players a run for their money.

"It goes to show that Samsung could not break/shake the Japanese-dominated camera market despite of their excellent product."

NX1 is an excellent product but it came much too late. For many years before, Samsung just could not make anything that is better than other cameras on the market so they never establish a large enough user base to sustain their effort.

Sony may be a relative newcomer, but their entire system is firmly built on the back of Konica-Minolta's expertise, which was firmly in 3rd place after the Canon / Nikon duopoly, and one of the most innovative camera companies of the 80s.

I admit, I have a general mistrust for consumer electronics companies in the camera market, going back to bad experiences with Casio and the period when every computer manufacturer seemed to need a digicam. (HP? Really?)

Sony gets a pass for buying Konica-Minolta and working with Zeiss. (And even then, often gets dinged for designing controls better suited for tech gadgets than for cameras.) Panasonic gets a pass for working with Olympus to do M4/3 and working with Leica.

Who does Samsung work with to give it camera cred? I remember hearing they worked with Pentax once upon a time, but it was never hilighted.

(I admit, I also have some biases against Samsung for their corporate behavior.)

This is all so profoundly poignant. When Samsung makes it official that their bean counters have chosen to waste the work of their brilliant engineers I feel there should be some sort of coordinated day of mourning from photographers of the world. Samsung is very lucky that the aforementioned engineers probably don't speak Japanese.

i didnt say its bad .. i believe its not the camera but its the right moment and right frame that makes a good photograph it can be a phone or a high end camera .. every camera have its own tech and all is working fine these days

It is very difficult to break into the Pro or Semi-Pro market with a good amateur base that can use their same lenses in a better camera and if I'm not mistaken most of the Samsung's amateur base uses MFT.

Normally a great win. In the face of reality it is painfull to see such a good cam and now it is going away....Sad for all the owners who finally could rejoice a system that was gaining momentum..And no: not for me, because of its size mostly and a bit lack of lenses. Still: would have liked it to continue.

1) Anyone with a little grasp of the situation knows Samsung NX series is most likely done for.2) what is lacking are extreme wide angle, primes, any good lens beyond 225 mm. I'd consider that "a bit of a lack". On top of that: fast focussing lenses, as the fast focussing is restricted in the NX1 line up to a handfull.

For different reasons, I think this series of personal choices are way more interesting than regular dpreview reviews and much better than some inane previews. Get personal, some of us will like it much more. Thanks Dale.

Huge Samsung photography kiosks in many Best Buys beg to differ... That they weren't successful in reaching an audience is another story, it did seem like they tried tho, marketing wise. Not that they couldn't have done much more, I think all the mirrorless makers have done a terrible job of marketing their advantages, on balance, but Samsung at least seemed like they were trying.

They made a lot of marketing mistakes. First, they had two lines of NX (xxx and xxxx) which were both WITHOUT an EVF option.

To have an EVF, one had to go with the mini DSLR form factor of NX xx or the DSLR form factor of NX1.

I know many ppl that went sony (or M4/3) instead of samsung for this reason, and I almost did the same.

Besides, samsung never listened to customers and customers' requests till NX1. I asked for a LOT of features that could have much improved the experience on NX300/30 and no one was ever implemented.

Finally, they were not perceived as a quality choice compared to cost. Again, cameras with EVF older than NX1 felt "cheap" in your hands and those w/o the EVF simply were uninteresting to ppl looking for a mid/high end mirrorless.

NX1 fixed most points, and added an incredible video section, but perhaps it's now too late. PPL are committed to other systems.

I was actually thinking of this more from a hardware standpoint. You don't create a revolutionary product like the NX1 without a fairly high level of commitment to R&D, manufacturing, etc. That said, marketing departments have to be committed as well for a product to succeed.

After Leica, Samsung NX line is my favorite for ergonomics, UI interface and handling.I still remember the great NX10 that was a very capable camera, if not an amazing one.Samsung suffered too much of the high ISO performance comparison against Sony (when they were basically just a small stop worse). They obviously fixed this with their last cameras and provided so much more specs than other competitors in the fields. It's a shame it's not selling.

The irony is that while DPreview still tests cameras in London, you soon won't be able to buy a Samsung camera anywhere in the UK. As Samsung withdraws from various markets, such as the UK and Germany, it would take a tremendous act of bravery to still buy an astoundingly expensive NX-1.

As late as September or 2015, DPreview published a test of the Tamron 16-300mm with samples that were very obviously taken in the UK. So, yes, they still test in the UK but you won't be able to buy a Samsung NX-1 there.

So, if I'm ignorant, also DPR is, since they gave NX1 the highest rating in APSC range, even with a much worse fw than current one? Do you have a NX1? Have you shoot more than 10000 pics with it? I did, and compared it with the likes of 6D, D750, D4S, A7R and even these heavyweight champions can't come close in performance and video. Only thing in which they have a "MINIMUM" edge is high ISO noise (1 stop or less).

Of course no APSC or smaller sensored camera even comes close to NX1, and I tested many.

Tecnoworld First of all ... MY APOLOGIES For my insulting commentSecondly DPR is a site connected with Amazon, that sells and buys staff, so anything published here has to do a lot with Amazon.Thirdly Nikon D7200 IS the APS-C Camera of the yearFourthly I don't care if you have tested many when the same time i have tested ….. many

techno: It is obvious that among the "…many cameras you have tested" there was no D7200.Now!! if this NX1 of yours is "…. able to beat any camera until LATE 2018 ???" then this is not Christmas it's April's fool day

Not clear what you mean by 'anything published here has a lot to do with Amazon.' Sure, we're an Amazon company, but we have editorial independence. Nobody told me what to write or what opinion I should have.

You may choose not to believe it, but that doesn't make it true. In the entire time I've been here nobody has ever told me what to write or how to write it. That includes reviews and opinion pieces. Pretty sure that makes me editorially independent.

Fact: DPReview is a separate entity from Amazon's retail business. The two businesses are assessed based on utterly different metrics - our team doesn't sell products, so we aren't measured on how many sales have been made.

Fact: Nobody outside the editorial team has any input into what we write or what we write about.

If our reviews weren't independent, manufacturers wouldn't deal with us and our audience wouldn't trust us. From a business perspective it would be counter-productive to do anything to undermine our readers' trust.

It's impossible for us to provide evidence but we can state these facts. You're welcome to believe what you want, but that belief is based on false assumptions and incorrect speculation.

I've shot and tested both the NX1 and D7200 extensively. Anyone claiming either is significantly better than the other is probably wrong. They're very similar in almost by almost every measure, with the only big difference in performance being that the NX1 is a vastly better video camera and has much more sophisticated Wi-Fi.

Fact: Nobody outside the editorial team knows what the editorial team does or doesn’t

Fact: Manufacturers have accepted you as what you really are, and that is one of the most visited website about digital photography, .... if not the most visited. - I don't think they would be stupid enough to break any bonds away from you-

NX1 is one good camera but not for 2015 Gear Year

I’ll be the judge of what is false or not of what i believe or observe.

Well, editorial independence or not, you won't bite the hand that feeds you, would you, when certain decisions are to be made. There is also a sinister parallel between the products that sells the most and the products that you write most about. If you were really objective and unbiased, you would go to much more trouble doing reviews of lesser known brands' products. But you go all out for the most website hits, in a very Amazon-like way. Maybe you should get some inspiration from the motoring press: You won't catch them napping when a new model is released: The road test is invariably published soon thereafter.

mxx - there's also a connection between the products that sell most and the subjects people want to read about. All publications, regardless of ownership, try to write content that will be of interest to the largest number of people.

We do write reviews of products that we know will never generate enough interest to justify the time spent, but we do it anyway. We'd like to do even more but we've tended to be limited by time.

Thanks for your boldness in choosing such an underrated camera as your camera of the year.

NX1 is easily the best camera on the market with an ASPC (or smaller sensor). It's even better than most (all?) FF cameras for 4k video up to 800-1600 ISO and on par with the best FF in IQ for stills up to 1600 ISO. And it's as fast or faster (AF and burst) than 1dx and d4s.

The problem is that ppl simply ignore. Ignore the fact that it's so good. And if they read this, they laugh. Because they prefer to continue ignoring.

Just as I said below. People like Perl are basing their assumptions on old FW and reviews not understanding that almost everything on the camera was significantly improved.I know some refuse to listen, but he NX1 is now superb at focusing and tracking.

Relax, I wasn't bashing Samsung, I genuinely hope all they've built and developed doesn't just vanish into thin air... It'd be a crying shame. However when they pull out of markets conspicuously and they let this kinda rampant speculation fester, there's invariably gonna be jokes.

Who knows, maybe the Nikon rumors pan out, maybe this time next year we're talking about the Revenge of the Korean. :p I always thought Samsung was something of a dark horse, the least amount of street cred but quite possibly the biggest marketing arm.

I thought they could've done what even Sony hasn't managed, in getting mirrorless into the limelight in the U.S., Samsung's marketing has moved mountains in other markets when they really set their mind to it... They did try to an extent, I've seen some pretty nice Samsung camera kiosks and displays in Best Buy...

That's more than I can say for pretty much every other mirrorless player. Sony's NEX booth still says NEX and has outdated models on display, or battery less models, and everyone else has a very minimal retail or big box presence.

There are very few weaknesses, but for one in particular I am very disappointed.Despite that there is the possibility to activate the electronic shutter in combination with the mechanical one (which can not be excluded) theoretically useful to avoid that curtains vibration produce blurred images, is not effective enough (as, instead, is the case on the Sony A7 that do not produce blur in single shot mode). Under about 1/100 sec (particularly from 1s to 1/60) with long focal length, alas, blurs appears or can appear and ruin the micro detail.

It seems to me that the NX500 is a bit less vulnerable to this curse.In this respect, the NX1 behaves like the Sony A7R! Sigh!It would be enough for Samsung to introduce an NX2 or NX1 II with a sensor similar to that inside Sony A7S or A7R II and, why not, another similar body with less Mpixels but more capable under low light.

need new lenses to cover the FF, it seems obvious. If you do not noticed the blur, well for you. Be happy. The blur appear similar to a double immage (a light splitted) on vertical lines of a test chart with the camera in landscape orientation.

I basically agree with everything you wrote, Dale, I hope that, in one way or another, Samsung continues to surprise us in the future with its NX line.I recently bought and now have from a month the NX1, NX500 (16-50mm, 50-200mm of the kit), 12-24mm, 16-50mm S, 50-150mm S, 45mm, 85mm. Hope I do not break the 12-24mm! (Google search for the construction defect of this lens).I am waiting to receive adapters for Nikon, Pentax, Canon FD and Contax lenses.

I don't do video and I have not been able to test all and really well, during my hiking in the mountains, but the feeling that I already got from NX1 (firmware 1.40) for the little I have done so far outdoors, is already very promising in terms of operating speed, pleasure of the very good dials, overall ergonomics, overall ease of use and, not least, great picture quality, for many parameters. Indeed these are not promises, they are actually there, existing in the present.

@HowaboutRAW
It depends on how you define 'better.' You're correct that the EVF on the Leica SL has better specs, and I'll concede that it looks amazing, however I still enjoy using the one on the NX1 more because it's so seamlessly integrated with the whole shooting experience. From that perspective, I stand by my opinion in the article that the NX1 has my favorite EVF of any still camera.

I'm not claiming that the SL's EVF is not integrated into the Leica shooting experience. But in my opinion (which is all this piece is) the NX1 does it better. The way I measure that is a bit intangible. I just enjoy using it more. As a result it's my favorite EVF.

You rarely defend digital Leicas...unless someone mentions one, and then you defend them. You defend them when they ARENT MENTIONED! How dare someone like the EVF in another device MORE than your blessed SL. Give it a rest and stop badgering people. Your insanity is wearing everyone's tolerance a little thin.

Personal preference is always open to "feel" evaluation. Thus, it's not a debate, it's an opinion. The writer has an opinion, yet you want to shout his opinion down. Unreal arrogance on your part, but par for the course when reading your posts.

"My review was toast. A couple months later, after re-testing the entire camera again and writing a new review, we were ready to go to press one more time when… wait for it… Samsung released another firmware update. Fortunately, this update wasn't as dramatic as the previous one, so we made an editorial decision to go ahead and publish anyway lest we repeat the process in perpetuity, but you get the idea."

You wouldn't have this problem if you completed the reviews in under 12 Parsecs.

It's funny... we often get criticized for not getting reviews out quickly enough (and sometimes it's probably deserved), however, this is an example of the type of behind-the-scenes stuff that really does hold things up.

We could have just published the review we already had finished. But the first comment below the story would have been "Your review is out of date. You guys really need to go re-test this camera with the new firmware."

Such and incredible bargain. Every bit as good as an A7Rii up to ISO3200, but for 1/3rd the price. The big difference is the Samsung zooms are F/2-2.8 and F/2.8 vs. F/4, and Samsung can shoot at 15 FPS.

120 FPS video while tracking focus is amazing as well as the 4K video.

And did you know the NX1 has IBIS during video for any lens you put on it?

Honestly the AF with the last FW update is ridiculously good.Super fast and super accurate.I use it primarily for sports and am never let down. People get confused because at first is was good, but not great. After the FW updates it kept improving.

When the NX1 was on display at Photokina (using preproduction firmware) continuous AF was short of a disaster, even on high contrast motionless targets. When I pointed that out to the German person at the stand he called no less than three Korean guys to surround me. I demonstrated the issues and we kind of agreed that this was sub-par performance. They nodded and hopefully went back home with an agenda to improve things.

Since then I never had another NX1 in my hands, so I don't know how much AF-C improved. Most mirrorless cameras are good and fast with AF-S, it's AF-C where they have to compete with DSLRs.

AF-C improved a lot, starting with subsequent pre-production firmware, but even more so with firmware updates released throughout 2015. An NX1 with current firmware is almost a different camera in terms of AF performance than you would have seen at Photokina.

In general, Samsung has been really good about listening to feedback on this camera. I lost count of the number of times we passed along suggestions that magically showed up in the next firmware update, almost to our specification.

Perhaps Samsung's problem was they waited to long to hit a grand slam home run? They had no OMD EM5, GH4, Alpha7, or XT1 like camera until the NX1. The NX1 certainly is an outstanding camera, but did they wait too long to create it?

They were the first company to offer an APS-C MILC system (yes, even before Sony NEX), then spent the next five years grinding out insipid models. Cameras that couldn't compete with the top tier and were quickly forgotten.

They waited so long, that most of their potential customers had already adopted M4/3, Fuj X, or Sony E/FE. And finally they created a real gem, but it was too late.

Samsung was busy being "pretty good" like Hyundai, while Sony, Fuji, Panasonic and Olympus were busy being superb like Honda, Nissan and Toyota.

Those times when Samsung stagnated or laid low its camera business was probably the time when they shifted focus on developing and innovating smart phones because they realized that mobile smartphone has a very big potential in the market.

5 years from now revenue from smartphone sales will start to crash. Barring the release of radical technology, like world wide free communication from your smartphone without any cell tower within 100 miles, a basic 80 dollar phone will do all that you want in 5 years. Already true of 150 dollar phones.

This camera has the perfect feautures and some great body. This is what the d400 should be (28mp, fast FPS, great AF and video 4k)... The only but huge problem Samsung has is not having big big lens options like Canikon... If sigma, tamron or tokina would produced lenses for Samsung mount i would sell all my nikon gear... But sigma is just for Canikon and Sony

I have seen this type of bokeh with the 50-150mm lens a few times, typically at the long end with a well-isolated subject against a plain background with some type of repetitive pattern.

It's reproducible, so at least on our copy of the lens I would say it's typical. However, you don't really notice it in most shots unless you have just the right conditions. It's probably one of the few things I don't love about this lens, but as @creaDVty pointed out some people do like the look.

why Nikon (or Canon) should make a mirror less camera like Sony A7 that has problematic flange distance?

Nikon is used because body is familiar by size and shape. Change that and you start to alienate the user base.

I believe that when Nikon and Canon enters to mirrorless markets, they keep existing bodies and simply remove the mirror and replace OVF with EVF.It would start selling new bodies and keep current objectives in line.

Even with an adapter, Nikon and Canon wouldn't be selling new objectives, instead just adapters and make users unhappy to need one!

Make an new bayonet and demand to buy new objectives and rage will rise.

Canon and Nikon are stuck to their decades old photographic objectives.

And even when you make bodies small, objectives needs to be big.And only way to change size of the camera (body+objective) is to change format like Olympus did when adapting 110 format after 110 format based very simple facts, most situations ain't shot aperture wide open and smaller camera is easier to handle and future digital technology provides the quality that is more than enough for most needs, why smaller format can be used.

Nikon has 1 series, but too small camera as m4/3 has prooven to suffer as well with Panasonic GM series. Nice but not ones you want to take on demanding photography. Olympus E-M1 hits the great balance being small without compromise to features being large enough.

And yet many wants Nikon and Canon to make smaller bodies, and same time say that m4/3 are too small.

If Nikon existing users would need to buy a adapter to new mirrorless body, it would be bought one adapter buy body. And why not just integrate the adapter to the body then?

And many would be happy to keep using existing bodies with mirrorless technology inside and just be over it. Nothing would really change than couple buttons in body and new menu entries and some removed and that's it!

What would be interesting reason to make the mirrorless body smaller and offer an adapter requirement, is speed boosters.

In future there will come little higher density sensors, like 42-56Mpix. And it offers a way to use a Half-Frame mode, an cropped APS-C area for the sensor. And it would offer the way to use an official speed boosters of 0.75x to keep same field of view as in full-frame mode (non-cropped) but lower resolution but compensate with a one stop faster exposures. It would help sell the long telephoto objectives like 200-500mm that becomes very attractive then as swap the adapter from O-ring to optical one and automatically get Half-Frame activated and still use same field of view and lower resolution (more than enough) and one stop faster exposures.

It might sound trouble some but we can't get 135 format to have densier sensors as the limits comes in.

Right, a mirrorless Nikon or Canon, will also have adapters that work with their SLR lenses, but a mirrorless Nikon full framed body would be much shallower than a DSLR, and it will need new native lenses.

You state that as a given, but in reality this is no absolute given at all.

Its not necessary either. The Sony A7 has a design fault to start with. The flange range is too short and as a result you have bad vignetting at the corners. The short flange range is also problematic as there is much more risk of sensor flare.

By deepening the flange range, or keep it as it currently is in a DSLR, you solve both problems, plus you do not need an adapter to use your 'older' lenses. Therewith not alienating your userbase.

There is a lot to say to shortening, but there are a lot of reasons not to do it either.

HAR:Again there are good reasons for both. You state it as a fact.But its just not.

Its not only a technical decision but also a marketing decision that may have great impact on how current DSLR users perceive their brand.

Nobody who heavily invested into L- or Goldring glass wants to buy a complete new set of lenses or want to buy and use an adapter for them to keep them working.

Being disloyal to your customer base and force them towards a new lens mount can have great impact in how people perceive that brand.

Next to the fact that it makes switching towards another brand even easier as a customer needs to reinvest into both, a camera and their lenses when a brand changes lens mounts.

If you have been carefully looking at older analogue 35mm cameras you will see that they were much smaller then the current line of DSLRs to start with. Some even as small as the Fujifilm X-T1 or Olympus OM-D line. Yes they will be thicker then the A7, but as 'light' and nearly as compact.

I'm sure say Nikon will work out a very good adapter that makes the use of F mount lenses easy.

Right, and the reason older 35mm film lenses could be smaller is that film is better at over coming vignetting than flat sensors. (This is one of the reasons that the Leica M9, and M240, and now SL are remarkable--also very expensive.)

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